History of Irish Americans in Boston
The Catholic Irish have been in Boston since colonial times, when they arrived as indentured servants, mostly women and children, as opposed to those of Scots-Irish Protestant ancestry who were merchants, sailors, or tradesmen.
According to historian James Cullen, a large number of Irish immigrants arrived as early as 1654, on the ship Goodfellow, and were "sold" into indentured servitude "to such of the inhabitants as needed them.
"[1] one of these Irish may have been Ann Glover[2] Most of the early arrivals were Presbyterians from Ulster who came seeking relief from high rents, repressive taxes, and other pressures.
Wary of Boston's Anglo-Saxon Puritans, who were hostile to the Irish, many moved to the outer fringes of the Bay Colony and founded towns such as Bangor and Belfast in Maine, and Londonderry and Derry in New Hampshire.
According to local legend, Sullivan used "Saint Patrick" as the official password when he led Colonial troops into town following the British evacuation of Boston in 1776.
Preachers railed from the pulpit against the "blasphemy" and "idolatry" of Roman Catholicism, and local newspapers fanned the flames by printing anti-Catholic propaganda, filled with wild conspiracy theories about the Jesuits.
Most of the immigrants during this period were poor, unskilled laborers from rural backgrounds who settled in the slums of the North End, the South Cove, and Fort Hill.
[12] Boston health inspectors described a typical Irish slum as "a perfect hive of human beings, without comforts and mostly without common necessaries; in many cases huddled together like brutes, without regard to age or sex or sense of decency.
Irish laborers helped build up the business district behind Faneuil Hall, built townhouses on Beacon Hill, cleared land for North Station, and filled in the South End; others worked on the waterfront as fish cutters and stevedores.
A Boston native of Irish descent, Ring worked for his family's paper export business and was a leading member of several charitable organizations.
In 1847 they held a mass rally in the crowded Irish neighborhood of Fort Hill; residents, forewarned by the clergy and urged to keep the peace, stayed indoors that day.
[24] The Boston Police Department's first Irish officer, Bernard "Barney" McGinniskin, was fired that year without cause,[25] and on Independence Day, the newly constructed St. Gregory's Church in Dorchester was burned to the ground by Know Nothing rioters.
Historian Brian Kelly says, "Though they were neither consistent stalwarts of the northern war effort nor pure-and-simple dupes of the slavocracy, the Irish were capable both of ardent support and sacrifices for the Union cause and of vicious hatred for the "n*****s" and his/her abolitionist sympathizers.
Irish Bostonians also contributed to the war effort by working in the Watertown arsenal and the iron foundries of South Boston, or in the shipyards, building warships for the navy.
However, as in New York City, on July 14, 1863, a draft riot attempting to raid Union armories broke out among Irish Catholics in the North End, resulting in approximately 8 to 14 deaths.
[39] In the early 20th century, Boston's Irish Americans were successful in Democratic Party politics and the labor movement, yet were relatively slow to break into business and the professions.
[43] The most prominent figure in Boston politics early in the 20th century was John F. Fitzgerald, a man so well known for his charming personality that he was nicknamed "Honey Fitz".
Fatherless at the age of ten, Curley left school to help support his family while his mother scrubbed floors in downtown office buildings.
[44] According to City Councilman Fred Langone, Curley was more popular with the newer immigrants, such as Italians and Jews, than he was with the lace curtain Irish of Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and Hyde Park.
The election of president John F. Kennedy was a source of great pride to Boston's Irish Americans, and marked a turning point in their "political consciousness".
[54] Boston's Irish Catholics tended to be socially conservative, with little interest in the civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War, and feminist movements.
To combat the de facto segregation of Boston's public schools, federal judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. ruled that students must be bused between predominantly white and black areas of the city.
[56] Senator Ted Kennedy supported Garrity's ruling, while Ray Flynn, then serving on the state legislature representing South Boston, opposed it.
[67] In the official 2016 election results, Irish-heavy Boston suburbs including on the South Shore witnessed swings to the left (Scituate: +19.5% D, Cohasset: +32.8% D, Milton: +26.6% D, etc.)
Thayer started the first Catholic congregation in Boston in 1790, ministering to French and Irish immigrants; eventually he moved to Limerick, Ireland, where he lived the rest of his life.
The Boston Globe's coverage of a series of criminal prosecutions of five local priests drew national attention to the issue of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and subsequent cover-ups by the church hierarchy.
[81] Edwin O'Connor's best-selling 1956 novel, The Last Hurrah, is set in an unnamed city, widely assumed to be Boston; its main character, Frank Skeffington, is likely based on James Michael Curley.
Films with a Boston Irish focus include Good Will Hunting (1997), The Boondock Saints (1999), Mystic River (2003), The Departed (2006), Gone Baby Gone (2007), The Town (2010), Spotlight (2015), and Black Mass (2015).
[87] In 1837, the same year as the Broad Street Riot, Irish Bostonians formed their own volunteer militia company, one of ten that made up the infantry regiment of the Boston Brigade.
The Massachusetts legislature repealed the law requiring a two-year waiting period before new citizens could vote, and passed a bill effectively declaring that Catholic students could no longer be compelled to read from the King James Bible.
